Time variations in the transmissibility of pandemic influenza in Prussia, Germany, from 1918-19.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Time variations in transmission potential have rarely been examined with regard to pandemic influenza. This paper reanalyzes the temporal distribution of pandemic influenza in Prussia, Germany, from 1918-19 using the daily numbers of deaths, which totaled 8911 from 29 September 1918 to 1 February 1919, and the distribution of the time delay from onset to death in order to estimate the effective reproduction number, Rt, defined as the actual average number of secondary cases per primary case at a given time.

Results

A discrete-time branching process was applied to back-calculated incidence data, assuming three different serial intervals (i.e. 1, 3 and 5 days). The estimated reproduction numbers exhibited a clear association between the estimates and choice of seria

SUBMITTER: Nishiura H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1892008 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature